Discussing my "second step" in working thru the hurt and anger that I have experienced in my time working in the church - and specifically dealing with:

1. Who am I actually mad at?

2. What do I do when I'm mad/hurt/angry with someone and there's nothing I can do to change the situation. 

This one is long because I ran some side rabbit trails and spent probably 3x's the amount of time to say: 

1- I was angry at God - so I had to look thru scripture for the answers to: Is God watching? Does God care? What's God's desire in brining rightness to a situation?

2- I was mad at others who brought hurt - that I can't change and hasn't been appropriately owned - so I've had to continue to try and position my thoughts and emotions in positivity for the sake of wanting softness or peace as opposed to anger. 

Sharing from my experience in this process of being "hurt" by those I served under (not all - but a few people) throughout my time working as a pastor - and the desire to help us as a group not throw everything out - but rather recognize there is a problem at large in our churches today, but there is also something that we as group of people can do something about it moving forward...

Step 1 - this is not an easy step. 

1. Don't quit.  

2. Allow yourself the window of time to "take a breathe". There's not a set amount of time that it should take you - you may count to 10 and that may take 10 years to count that high...and that's ok. 

3. While breathing... take the time to begin to ask Jesus, "What's wrong with me?" ("Jesus, draw a circle around me and change everything in the circle that is not of You...and then when that's done - please show me how to invite others into that circle.") Ps. 139:23-24 - David prays a very similar prayer in asking the Lord to change what was wrong with him. 

So I attempted to do what I normally do in my proverbs discussions - and really struggled today to really get anything of substance out at a all.

So why publish it? 

- It's ok to not always have a good grasp on something at the moment 

That idea that - it's ok to be where you are. It's where you are. But you may want to do something about it in the future if in fact you want to be further down the road in __________. Today was a good reminder that I don't have all the answers - in fact today I didn't really have any answers, but showing up consistently is part of the journey. 

- Today was a struggle for sure. But struggles can help highlight it's own takeaway. 

1 - I don't know as much as I thought I did.

2 - "Don't be wise in your own eyes." (today was a humble reminder)

3 - Fear the Lord and run from evil... (regardless of how great my grasp on history or high academic knowledge - the basic application is the same as Agur's from ch. 30 "rely on and honor the God". 

Destin Garner Lead Teaching Pastor at RockPointe Church in Flower Mound, TX - joining in again on the PodCast and talking about church, wins, losses, how we lead matters and why. 

Destin answers the questions of:

- What's a win

- What's a loss 

- What should we be doing as people who say we believe in Jesus and as groups of people who meet together consistently and call ourselves a "church".

1- Accept my teaching: Taking that to be true. Is there a process to that? There is one for me... I don't always immediately just agree with what I read. There may be a period of wrestling with or trying to reconcile or rationalize the truth of a statement or concept that gets me to a firmer belief and agreement with that particular issue. 

2- "store" up my commands - filing those away in our minds and in a place where I am going to come back to those for applying them to life, circumstance, situations, decisions, etc... 

3- Where do we get or hear from "the Lord's" mouth - and as it pertains to knowledge and wisdom...

4- Founding our lives on truths - so that it then dictates the direction of life as we refer back to the foundation. 

2 My son, if you accept my words

This was initially going to be a discussion over the first 6 verses - 38 minutes into it, I realized that I had only talked about the first 2 verses and run at least 2 rabbit trails that took a moment to wrap back to where I was trying to go...

Points discussed:

1 - "wicked" men don't or aren't able to truly maximize their potential at ________. 

"wicked" being simply living out consistently in contrast to God's desire for our life.

2 - wisdom, knowledge coming from the fear of the Lord and how that concept bleeds into all aspects of our lives 

28 The wicked flee though no one pursues,

2 When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers,

Points in the podcast: 

1 - Don't run your mouth 

2 - If things are said about you, let someone else do that...

3 - Be careful with who you surround yourself with

4 - You don't know who your friends are until someone tells you what's wrong with you - (in love). 

27 Do not boast about tomorrow,

2 Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth;

3 Stone is heavy and sand a burden,

4 Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming,

5 Better is open rebuke

6 Wounds from a friend can be trusted,

This episode was not intended to be a part 1 and 2 - but for recording sake that's just how it ended up happening. 

This is the wrap up of about an hour of me sharing experiences from working in a church, growing up, becoming an adult and then rationalizing what we do with the things that are right, the things that are wrong and then how I have "practiced" trusting Jesus as it pertains to this entire idea. 

The reference to a "fool" is brought up 11 times (3 reference to folly) 

Quick outline of discussion:

1. a "fool" is the disobedient or godless 

2. Honor is "weight, value, reverence, position, authority - giving to one by others"

3. Control what you can control - which all I can control is me... and don't worry about the rest, we can trust that as long as we are in line with what God wants us to do or be... then it will be fine.

4. All the discussion about how negative or destructive a "fool" is... what's worse is to be one who thinks the are "wise in their own eyes..." 

26 Like snow in summer or rain in harvest,

Discussing this idea of Reconstructing Faith as opposed to Deconstruction inside this new "me too" type church movement in the wake of the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast (which I thought was a quality podcast - that has a gold takeaway if you are able to self evaluate throughout that podcast rather than finding yourself pointing fingers, getting angry or whatever it may be that is the negative emotion/thought process that can be a takeaway...) 

I had both amazing and awful experiences working as a Pastor in similar and drastically different environments... The healthy situations were incredible... the unhealthy situations created all kinds of internal turmoil for me personally, and yet it is not and was not a result of God not caring, not being involved, or not existing... It's the exact opposite. 

I've been wrestling for years now with the things that just infuriate me about those times. I've asked hard questions in my time praying, I've made some brash statements in times of being angry, hurt, afraid, just pissed, etc... But at the end of the day - the concept that "Heaven is enough" continues to be the reassuring/recurring theme in the answer to all those questions or things that I've wrestled with. 

Correction: the Hebrews passage I reference as "in Heb. 12" is actually Hebrews 13:17.